OUTBREAK- Final Edit!

Evaluation of OUTBREAK!

• In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?

Throughout our opening sequence, we have used many of the thriller conventions throughout our editing and filming, however the main convention that we portrayed in our opening sequence is the build up of tension and suspense.

In my previous posts, it shows that me and Rachel have tried to show tension, especially with the use of short quick shots of film that fade into other shots. In the film 'Psycho' directed by Alfred Hitchcock, the famous 'shower' scene is known for it's wide range of camera angles at an extremely fast pace, this creates tension to the scene as the fast pace scenes scare the audience due to the quick motion. We wanted to imitate this part of 'Psycho' as we think even though it's such an old film, it's iconic for providing tension in this way, however we have adapted this idea by placing it in our opening sequence and make the pace a lot slower with the use of fades.

In this 3 minute clip, the shower scene alone with the unknown murderer has over 40 different cuts at a very quick pace showing the dramatic end to the female characters life which creates and directs so much tension towards the audience.

We used many fades for the beginning of our opening sequence as we thought that fades build up tension more than straight cuts would, and is also a clever way of building up suspense for the end of the sequence. After the main title we use straight cuts to build up more tension and make the pace quicker towards the end of the sequence.

The clip above is the opening titles to the 2009 film 'Orphan' we got the idea for the use of fades from this opening title sequence as we felt extremely anxious and tense when we were watching it and we think this is because of how the fades made everything much slower paced which we liked.

Audio: One of the main piece of audio we used is strangely called Outbreak and when we listened to it, we thought it built up suspense in the right way and had perfect timing to it. I think that timing is important to a good opening sequence as music tracks should match the type of action that is going around on-screen. Our music is a dominating function in our opening sequence as it guides the action that is on screen, however due to the mix of instruments used such as heavy drums and yet a light piano sound, it doesn't completely dominate and isn't too loud. We have also kept some of the original diegetic sound from the filming in the forest such as the birds singing because we think this pleasant yet eerie sound may confuse the audience, in a way that they might be anxious to what happens next.

In most/every Thriller movies the lighting is very sinister to give off a mysterious effect and give an eerie atmosphere,many films show this such as Seven and Sin City. We chose to follow this convention through as it's a simple way of creating a sinister atmosphere to a scene and we used this mainly in our title sequences and the footage of the labs where only one lamp was used. We made the lighting dark in the lab scenes to create mystery for the audience to what the chemicals they are using, however in the forest scenes, they were quiet well light as we wanted it to contrast, the light may confuse the audience as to the genre but as the tension builds then it would be easily recognisable.

In our opening sequence, non of the MAIN characters are introduced, but the characters we do introduce are the main characters for the first storyline, however we don't see the faces of the character making it more surreal and a mystery to the audience. We imagine the female in the opening sequence to be a main part in the rest of the film also, if we produced the film even more. Also doctors and scientists would be introduced and shown to be the main characters who try and solve the outbreak/disease with the help of the female girl.

Normally in a thriller movie, a female is the young, vulnerable one who gets hurt first, however in our opening sequence, the male is the first victim to be struck by the liquid sourced disease. We went against this convention to show how the male in the story can also be the weak one and the female can be the heroin who saves the day. We also used Jay who looks like a strong male to show vulnerability in a strong man also, perhaps showing that this is a deadly virus/disease to the audience. By going against this convention in most types of thriller, we risk the attention from the audience and there anxiety of what has happened to the 'poor innocent woman' however gain the questions like 'how could this happen to a man?!'

• How does your media product represent particular social groups?

Our characters in the opening sequence are in their late teens and we think that our film represents teenagers being innocent and irresponsible at the start but if we continued the film, I would then to show integrity and responsibility through the character, helping solve the disease.

In our opening sequence only one of the main characters are shown and if we were carrying on the rest of the film the main characters would be introduced later. We are not really able to follow the protagonist/antagonist convention of a thriller film, however we have protagonists in our opening sequence to show the innocence the teenagers bring. We have purposefully made the relationship between the two characters very vague and not obvious as that gives more question for the audience to ask.

• What kind of media institution might distribute your media product and why?

The type of distribution company I would like mine and Rachel's film would be companies such as 'Warp' or 'Working Title' as they are independent film companies that work with smaller budget films. This is due to the quality of films they make even though they only have low budget for it. Of course if I had the money I would aim our film at the bigger distribution companies such as 'Warner Bros' as they distribute a variety of films and are very well known for distributing some of the best films ever made. Due to some of my research, I have found out Warner Bros are distributing a upcoming new film (October 2011) that comes under the sub-genre of medical thriller called Contagion. Weirdly, one of our original ideas is extremely similar to the storyline and Contagion was one of our name choices.

I would relate our film to be something similar to Cloverfield (2008) or 28 Days Later (2002) as it follows the same storyline in some ways such as a virus/monster taking over the world/country and also because they have an extreme independent feel about them, perhaps due to the rich story lines, unique camera angles and special effects (Cloverfield) .

Cloverfield, directed by Matt Reeves was distributed by Paramount Pictures. This film's budget was estimated at $25 million and proved it's success by grossing at a total of $170,764,026 worldwide according to IMDb. I believe if our opening sequence was continued and also filmed and edited to this films level, we could potentially achieve the same figures as this, however the budget wouldn't have to be as high because our film would be more scientific than special effect based.

Another film that inspired my distribution choices and filming ideas was 28 Days Later directed by Danny Boyle and distributed by 20th Century Fox. The budget of £8 million was extremely lower than Cloverfield's due to the fact that it's a British film and we don't have big funding production companies like America do. However even though this film had a small budget, it grossed at $82,719,885 altogether worldwide, showing that even though the film may have a small budget and not famous 'blockbuster' actors, the distributors sell the film to the audiences by making them appealing etc, therefore achieving huge profits like this film did. I was inspired by this film as it involved a scientific beginning that didn't turn into a medical thriller that we as a group wanted to show, however it didn't follow this sub-genre through and turned into a zombie/horror film, which is some ways helped us also with our idea processes.

• Who would be the audience for your media product?

Our product is aimed at a younger generation so late teenagers-30/40 year old. This is because of the characters shown in the mini storyline in our opening sequence. Due to the fact that our characters look particularly young and stylish, the older generations of audience may not connect with it as much as a younger audience would.

Our opening sequence is quite dramatic and it some ways edgy and confusing to suit the male characters frame of mind, so I think a younger target audience is appropriate as they may be attracted to this concept more and maybe even understand it more as we have gone down a psychological route also. However saying this, from the questionnaire that I conducted a few months ago, it showed that the older audiences do like medical thrillers as they're 'interesting' and 'attention grabbing', this is why we chose this sub-genre as we could adapt it in the way we wanted to. We adapted our idea first by following the medical thriller sub-genre, however adding some young and unique edges that would attract a younger audience, such as the distorted camera angles/effects and even the age of the actors we used.

• How did you attract/address your audience?

I think we attracted our audience by filling our opening sequence with suspense and tension using thriller conventions. We built tension by editing our film such as using adding several fades and short clips that create a tense atmosphere.

I think that the settings for our filming would grab attention as they're quite unusual and perhaps making the audience ask questions towards the film such as 'why are they in the forest or what's the lab for' therefore addressing the audience. We think that the scary/suspenseful music that we chose for the piece, holds the filming together due to the different times of tension etc. Me and Rachel thought when watching our piece again that the music fits perfectly with the action therefore tying it all together to give it a much more eerie atmosphere.

I think our title sequence would also attract the audience as it's different to other people in the class and maybe how professional films would show them. Our titles were based on a plain black background with very simple white font, and motivated by the film 'Se7en' opening sequence as it used a similar effect. We decided against putting the titles on over the action as I thought it distracts the audience from the scenes, and in our opening sequence, we thought that this wasn't right so just creating blank backgrounds doesn't just provided more concentration on action and titles separately but also builds suspense by being placed in between the action.

I have asked a few of my friends from college their opinions of our opening sequence and maybe how we could of improved if we had another chance:

Andrew Tinley- Year 13:

What do you think of it overall?: It is a very effective attention grabbing opening sequence, with the use of fades and great choice of music.

What did you enjoy the most?: I loved the fast cuts and editing work - made the thriller seem very ambiguous and mysterious. This made me want to watch more.

If I was to re-do this, how could I improve?: Maybe just work on the wide screen and screen adjustment.

Rosie Atkin- Year 12:

What do you think of it overall?: I didn’t get it at first however further into it with the “48 hours earlier” part I got the plot line a lot better.

What did you enjoy the most?: The music is very good! Very sinister, I also liked the science scenes, the lighting looked very atmospheric.

If I was to re-do this, how could I improve?: You could use less transitions, this would make it look slightly more professional. The scenes with both Jay and Rachel walking could be timed better as it looks like the same shoot. Where Rachel says “you alright jay” it would of been good if you cut away to a blackout.

• What have you learnt about technologies from the process of constructing this product?

Before starting the Media A level course I had no idea how to use a camera, what camera angles were never mind what effects they show and how to edit footage using a computer software whereas now, I’ve learnt all this in a relatively short space of time and I’m quite confident with Media and the way things work now.

First I wasn’t at all confident with using a camera and it was tricky to begin with because of all the components that make it up but it was fairly easy to pick up and now I’m confident when I need to film something and also which camera angles would create the best effect, what would suit the storyline and what it could symbolise such as a high angle shot making someone look weak or a low angle shot making someone look more dominant.

Close up of infected hand- Relevant to the storyline

High angle shot of the victim- shows that he is the vulnerable

Ghosting effect used to show the victim's state of mind

Close up of the scientific equipment, showing the significance to the audience.

Establishing shot of forest-so the audience can identify it later on.

I also learnt that rules in Media can be broken sometimes for example to create an effect and as a group we went ahead with this. We broke the 180 degree rule to create a edgy and disorientated piece so that the audience don’t know where to look and where the characters were walking from.

We didn’t use extremely ambitious camera angles as we needed a lot of mid shots and establishing shots to make the background storyline clear to our audience. However when we came to the editing process, I was confident after learning how to use most tools on the software during the preliminary task, so we used a range of transitions and effects to create the atmosphere and emotions from the audience that we wanted such as the ghosting effect on the scene where we see Jay struggling on the floor and Rachel running away, this was used to portray Jay’s characters mind set. We didn’t believe that we could show this through a camera angle however editing gave us more opportunity to show the effects we wanted.

• Looking back at your preliminary task, what do you feel you have learnt in the progression from it to the full product?

I knew from the end of our preliminary task that I wouldn’t of been able to cope doing the main project on my own due to my lack of knowledge in the subject itself, and even with gaining more confidence in the subject, I would need someone who would give me advice on what to do, what would look best and have someone there to make decisions with and for the most part my media partner; Rachel, was that person who I did this with.

I also learnt from the preliminary task to the main task that editing on footage can be over used therefore making the film look less professional and I now know that in some cases, less is more. I loved our preliminary filming and I think we could have probably progressed and made it into a main piece of filming however I think our preliminary filming and editing was worked on too much and we took editing it too far. I learnt from this by not focusing on what editing would look better but what editing techniques would add more to a film and what it could possibly symbolise.

I know that due to the mistakes we made with our groupings that ‘Outbreak’ could have been so much better but due to the timeframe we left ourselves with, we didn’t have the a great deal of time to know which camera angles would give effect, how we would show pain or even the filing quality but I think that we have produced a real attention grabbing piece of film, that builds tension and suspense well that our target audience would connect to.

Editing- Project 2!

After re-filming the footage we needed, we had about 15 minutes of film to cut down into a 2 minute opening sequence.

We started editing on the Adobe Premiere Pro as me and Rachel were comfortable working with this programme and school networks provided us with this. The start of the editing process was the easiest part as we just had to cut the parts of our footage and put them into place using the razor tool.

We were comfortable with this as we learned how to do it whilst we were doing our preliminary task. However the editing became more advance as we had to choose the video transitions and effects to put onto our film and these shouldn't just be chosen to make it look good or really professional but had to add tension and have a reason behind it. We decided to use fades for the majority of the opening sequence and for all of the first part as we believe this is a clever and simple way of creating tension and definitely suspense towards the audience. Also, we used really short cuts at the beginning so using these along with the quick fades, dissolves and cross fades, we think this creates a strong tension filled build up to the end of the opening sequence.

Towards the end of the opening sequence, we used more quick cuts to raise the tension and quicken the pace towards the end. Also after the big main title, we wanted to give a bit more information as we think the 20 or so seconds after the opening sequence is quite important so we made the main title come up quite quickly so we could add a bit more of the story afterwards.

Titles: We had a lot of titles that we wanted to place in our film, and me and Rachel think that whilst we were watched some opening sequence, that the ones filled with more titles have more tension and have more suspense as it makes the audience want to see and know what happens on the next bit of action. We also made our title font, very simple, not just so it's readable but as we looked at some opening sequences to medical thrillers such as 'Atomony', the font is simple and quite formal as it represents the professions in a thriller such as Scientists and Doctors.

We contemplated about whether we should change the whole image of the film to black and white but we tried it and it didn't look they way we wanted to, so we decided against this as it didn't look realistic like we wanted it too, and kept the original colour, just enhanced it a tiny bit to bring out the vivid colour in the backgrounds. After we put our film together, we had to apply sound, but sound that created tension and built up at just the right times.

Our music came from a free website called http://www.freemusic.com/ and we found 2 perfect tense filled tracks that would give our film the edge of suspense it needed. The piece of music have drum beats to build the tension but also have piano solo's slotted in the create the eerie and suspense filled atmosphere. The image below shows the harsh and light sounds within the piece of music we have used, The harsh sounds are the drums building tension and in the track at some points a piano solo come in, even though it's a lovely solo piece, it draws so much suspense and anxiety towards certain times in the opening sequence.

I believe that due to the lack oif experience I have and Rachel does, we have done a decent job of making our film tense film and using all the conventions a thriller would use.

Filming- Project 2

Day 1- George Spencer Academy- Forest.

For our idea, the main idea was to create a setting where the audience would wonder why they were there and we think that placing it in a forest would not just add tension and suspense but to add to the mystery of the rest of the film and what could/would happen.

We set up the camera and took it to the forest at the back of the school field. This is a small wooded area that is well lit because there's not too many trees to block natural light, however there's enough trees to create a tense atmosphere to the opening sequence.

We planned to shoot in the day, so when we came to the editing stage, we could use after effects to change the time of day by darkening the background if we wanted to but if we don't want to then, we can edit it how we please, to get the effect we want.

We used many variety of camera angles such as long shots, mid shots and also tracking shots that tracked the fast action. We wanted to use long shots and establishing shots to show off the setting and make the introduction to the main characters as clear as possible.

Me and Rachel believe that this day of filming went well as the weather was perfect as the sun peaked through the trees to give us enough light and the condition of th forest floor was okay and not too difficult for us to film. I filmed for this as both Jay and Rachel were in the film, I found it hard because I hadn't become comfortable with filming yet, just the editing and I didn't want to mess it up due to my lack of experience. However after filming, I felt slightly more confident and more expressive with the different variety of camera angles and positions we could use.


Day 2- George Spencer Academy- Science Lab.

We filmed in a school lab one lunchtime to shoot this scene and we set up many bottles etc with liquids in them. One of the liquids obviously being the poisonous one.

We used a variety of equipment from the lab, such as beakers and microscopes to portray to the audience that this is something to do with science or is involved in the medical genre.

We used many different camera angles also such as high angle shots and close ups to show the detial of the beakers and also the action/what is going on in the scene.

I felt a bit more confident filming this as I knew exactly what I wanted to achieve and that was to create the same effect as CSI programmes do which is to use small snapshots such as close ups of thee bottles, just to give the audience a hint to what the story may be.

In the next lessons we are going to have to work hard to edit our film the way we want to in time as we're cutting our time fine to get this done. We have decided the main stuff we want to achieve with the editing but it's just making sure we have enough film to complete it and get the point across to the audience that we want to.

What others thought... of our previous project, DRAFT!

What others thought of our previous draft copy of our first project:

• Emma Ford: "Good original idea but needs more work to it, such as music and editing"
• Richard Kish: "Make the storyline more understandable"
• Steph Chawner: "Good storyline, camera angles to be sharper, but good variety of them"
• Frankie Burchill: "Love the original idea but needs a bit more work to it to make the rest of the opening sequence a bit more understandable"

From these comments, we realise that the best thing to do is re-film but not change the type of thriller we want to portray because from these comments it looks like they enjoy the story and unique genre we wanted to show just hasn't been showed to the best of our ability, so we will start working on an improved idea in the next two lessons before re-filming.

BIG CHANGE!- Deciding to re-shoot and start new project!

OUTBREAK

After a lesson where we sat down as a class to watch each others rough edits and got feed back from the class, me and Rachel weren't confident that our filming and editing would get us a decent grade we want. We think that this filming wouldn't achieve what we wanted because we didn't think about camera angles and positions were in enough detail to portray the story the way we wanted to in the first place. Due to this, we thought it would be better for us to re-film all of it as we have enough time and slightly change the story from getting infected from a cat scratch to getting infected from poisonous liquid. We decided to do this as we thought about how adventurous the previous idea was and how people may not understand what we were trying to achieve by being a bit different and unique with our story. However we are keeping to the lines of the same sub-genre of medical thriller as we think this is completely different to any other ideas but we think just changing some of the aspects such as the type of infection and different settings will appeal more the the target audience and helps the audience to understand more of the storyline we were trying to show.

New Idea:

The new idea is again still in the sub-genre of Medical thriller however we followed a slightly different route:

• Instead of cat scratch infection, it's a poisonous liquid infection. We thought this was more mature and professional also we beleive that audiences will understand the characters and storyline better.
• Instead of setting it in a 'student house' which we beleive wasn't obvious to the audience in the first place, we made it a school/forest setting. We want to do this to reach out to the target audience more and make the opening sequence more understandable than the previous one. We want the opening sequence to leave the audience with a few questions but we found that when we watched opening sequences from popular thriller films where hardly information was given to the audience, that we were a bit confused and we would of prefered a little bit more information for us to question such as 'what's going to happen next?' etc.
  
• Change of the main characters: Before we had 2 main female characters but we decided in this story line that a male and female of late teenage years would be more suitable as we wouldn't make the relationship between the 2 characters obvious so this would be another question for the audience to ask themselves making them want to know what happens in the 'rest of the film'.

We think that these changes will help us gain the grade we want because we think this story will be more mature in our unique ideas and will make the audience understand more.

Me and Rachel's Editing- Day 1!

We made the decision that me and Rachel should create an editing version of the film of our own in Thursday's lesson which was very late as the deadline for the rough edit to be complete was the next day (Friday 18th) so for our rough edit we were only able to re-load our filming into Premiere Pro, cut the parts we needed and added only a few titles, and this was just due to the time we had before it had to be on the blog.

When next week lesson comes, we plan to fix the cutting in the scenes, add effects onto the titles such as scratch marks etc to link in with the theme/topic and add a lot more effects though out the transitions and film. I think colour would work better with the filming we have done as it would work more with our topic and black and white would be a bit too harsh for the opening sequence I think.